Introduction
What Kasify is, who it's built for, and why it exists.
What is Kasify?
Kasify is an open-source, multi-tenant e-commerce platform built for modern businesses. It gives you everything you need to launch and scale an online store — products, orders, customers, AI-powered features, payments, shipping, and more.
Think of it as your own Shopify — but fully owned, self-hostable, and built entirely on modern open-source tooling.
Unlike SaaS platforms that charge per-transaction fees and lock you into their ecosystem, Kasify is MIT licensed. You own the code, the data, and the infrastructure.
Who is it for?
Kasify is designed for three types of users:
Merchants who want a full-featured store without the per-transaction fees or vendor lock-in. You get all the tools — catalog management, orders, analytics, email, AI — out of the box.
Developers who want to build custom commerce experiences. The entire platform is built with tRPC + Drizzle ORM + Next.js, fully typed end-to-end. Extending it means writing TypeScript, not fighting a plugin system.
Agencies who manage multiple client stores from a single deployment. Kasify is multi-tenant by design — one installation powers hundreds of independent stores, each fully isolated.
Key concepts
Multi-tenancy
A single Kasify deployment can power many independent stores. Each store (tenant) has its own products, orders, customers, and settings. Tenants share the infrastructure but are completely isolated from each other at the database level.
Module architecture
Every feature in Kasify is a module — a self-contained unit that owns its API router, database schema, and UI. This is inspired by Magento's module system.
Module names follow the Vendor_ModuleName convention:
Kasify_Catalog— products, variants, images, collectionsKasify_Orders— order creation, line items, status managementKasify_Customers— customer accounts, profiles, authenticationKasify_AIAssistant— AI chatbot, description generator
Modules never cross-contaminate. If two modules need to interact, they import from each other's schemas directly.
API-first
Every action in the system goes through the tRPC API layer. The dashboard and storefront are both clients of the same API. This means you can build your own frontend, mobile app, or automation scripts using the same API.
Open source
Kasify is MIT licensed. You can self-host it for free forever, contribute to it on GitHub, or use the managed cloud offering if you'd rather not manage infrastructure.
Tech stack
| Layer | Technology | Why | |---|---|---| | API server | Node.js + Hono + tRPC | Fast, type-safe, edge-ready | | Database | PostgreSQL + Drizzle ORM | Relational, type-safe queries | | Dashboard | Next.js 15 + Tailwind | Full-stack React, app router | | Storefront | Next.js 15 + Tailwind | SEO-ready, blazing fast | | Auth | JWT (jose) + bcrypt | Stateless, secure by default | | Email | Nodemailer (SMTP) | Self-hosted, no vendor dependency | | AI | Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini | Multi-provider, bring your own key | | Deployment | Docker / Vercel / bare metal | Deploy anywhere |
Architecture overview
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Your Infrastructure │
│ │
│ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────────────────┐ │
│ │Dashboard │ │ Storefront │ │
│ │(Next.js) │ │ (Next.js) │ │
│ └────┬─────┘ └──────────┬───────────┘ │
│ │ │ │
│ └────────┬───────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ┌──────▼──────┐ │
│ │ API (tRPC) │ │
│ │ + Hono │ │
│ └──────┬───────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ┌──────▼───────┐ │
│ │ PostgreSQL │ │
│ │ (Drizzle ORM)│ │
│ └───────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
The API is the single source of truth. Both the dashboard and storefront communicate exclusively through tRPC procedures — no direct database access from the frontend.